The boys turn in permission slips and check their names in the coach's book.

One boy isn’t sure he can stay. His mom doesn’t have a car to pick him up.

Stay, Coach tells him. We'll get you home.

Coach slides off the bench and into his wheelchair. His arms are too short to reach the wheel rims, so he scoots onto the court using his feet.

He calls the boys over. The thumping of a dozen balls fades to silence. He talks about the drills they’re going to run and what it means to be part of a team.

“When we play basketball, we become a family,” Coach says. You stick together. You support your family. You don’t let your family down.

They are lessons he learned a long time before he stepped on a court. Treat everyone the same. Be the best. Don't give up.

Don't ever give up.

Four young men stand behind Coach and nod. They are his players from years past, in high school and college now.

“We’re going to work. We’re going to work hard,” Coach says. “Because that’s what it takes.”

The boys run three laps around the gym and line up. Coach is loud. He shouts in twos, saying most things twice.

“Go hard! Go hard!”

“Way to work, DeAngelo. Way to work!”

He gives the boys nicknames, and they stick. Uzi. Big Watson and his brother, Baby Watson.

“Oh, that was nice,” Coach yells when Damaurion Williams makes a layup. “Nice!”

“Don’t give up! Don’t give up!”

“If I can shoot a ball with my small hands, you can make a basket, too.”

CLOSE

Teacher and coach David Solano never let anyone tell him what he couldn't do. Now he has a plan for helping kids achieve. Mark Henle/azcentral.com

Over the last 25 years, a lot of players have challenged Coach to a shooting contest. He always bets a Gatorade. He never loses.

Coach has to cut his list of players from these 55 boys to 25, and then to 15. It’s the part he hates.

“I feel like the worst person on that day,” he says.

He needs good players on his team, but some of the kids who aren’t so good need to be on the team. They don’t have anything else.

Coach knows that because he grew up in this area, in a mix of ethnicity and backgrounds, mostly Hispanic and low-income.

It's why he wants to start a basketball league in the evenings, twice a week, for free.

He’d volunteer his time. His day is already full with his own family,the Castro team and his fourth-graders at Palm Lane Elementary School, but he'll find more time. He can get a gym for free. He’d pay the janitor out of his own pocket.

He also needs liability insurance, and that costs money he doesn't have.

He’s badgered local politicians in hopes they would help; they tell him they will call but don’t. His emails go unanswered.

Coach won’t give up. Because giving a kid a chance to be a part of something, where they feel like they belong and someone cares, could be the difference between staying in school and dropping out, between succeeding and failing.

His whole life, for all his 43 years, whenever someone told him he couldn’t do something, that it was impossible, he found a way.

He found a way.

Limitations: 'You aren't God'

Julia Solano (holding a young David) made herself an expert on arthrogryposis, reading everything she could find.(Photo: Solano family)

David Solano and his daughter A.J. Solano, 3, look on while David’s wife, Angel Solano, talks with their daughter Julia Solano,11, before the start of basketball practice.(Photo: Mark Henle/The Republic)

The Solanos shouldn’t expect too much for their son, the doctor said. He likely wouldn’t be able to brush his teeth or ride a bike. He might not even walk.

Mike listened until the doctor stopped talking. And then he said, “You know what? You’re a good doctor, but you aren’t God.

“It’s going to be up to me and my wife how we help him along.”

Progress: 'Let's keep going'

Julia made herself an expert on arthrogryposis, reading everything she could find.

She knew most children like David had typical cognitive and language skills. It likely wouldn’t get worse over time. David could live a normal life span.

Julia encouraged her baby to roll over and sit up. He learned to crawl and to walk.

David Solano's work with teachers and therapists at the Sewall Child Development Center was an approach considered revolutionary in the early 1970s.(Photo: Solano family)

When David was 2, she took him to the Sewall Child Development Center, where teachers and therapists worked together in a preschool classroom setting. It was an approach considered revolutionary in the early 1970s.

David learned to use utensils, draw with a crayon and write.

He learned to throw a ball and get up off the floor without using his hands.

And he learned how to dress himself, pulling his socks on with his toes instead of his fingers.

In the evenings, Julia would make David practice whatever he had learned that day, again and again, until he could do it perfectly.

“Come on, David,” she said. “Let’s keep going. One more time.”

Mike worked nights as a pressman at the Denver Post, and sometimes when he would get home and slide into bed next to his wife, he’d find her still awake, worrying.

“What kind of life will he have?” she’d whisper. Mike would pull her close.

Challenges: 'You have to be the best'

When David was 5, the principal of the neighborhood school said he could not attend kindergarten.

“Look at your son’s arms,” he said.

“People are going to look at you because your hands are different. You can either be the show or put on a show.”

“Why does that matter?” his mother demanded to know. David wore elastic-waist pants and shoes with Velcro straps. Half of the students couldn’t open the fiddly milk cartons.

The principal was firm. David could attend a special school two miles away.

A bus picked David up every morning. In the afternoons, he played with his cousins and the neighborhood kids who treated him the same as anyone else. They tackled him, hard, in football games. They put his face in the snow.

“Don’t be a baby,” they’d tell him. They took him wherever they went.

Mike and Julia watched their son with relief. He kept up with the other children just fine. He was happy and confident.

When David was 6, and his little sister Christina was born, Mike took him to the hospital. David peered at her small face and gently pushed aside her blanket.

“Oh, good,” he said. “I’m glad she didn’t get my arms.”

In third grade, David walked to school with his cousins and friends for the first time. That morning, his mother had straightened his shirt and told him, “Now that you’re there, you can’t mess up in class. You have to be the best.”

Setbacks: 'We make adjustments'

David’s mom didn’t like the word “disabled.” Her son was “handicapped.”

It is the only word she allowed them to use, even years later when people would frown at it.

Julia contended “disabled” meant the person was not able. “Handicapped” meant the person was able but needed some assistance.

“You just have to find a way,” she told her son.

So David always found a way.

He got a bike for his ninth birthday, but he couldn’t reach the handlebars. He had the bike store tilt the handlebars toward the seat and bend them inward so the grips were closer together.

At 5, David started helping his dad, Michael Solano, mow the lawn: David would push on the lower crossbar while his dad pushed on the bar above.(Photo: Solano family)

Now he could reach, and he could ride.

Mike would let David help him mow the lawn, starting when he was 5. The boy would push on the lower cross bar while his dad pushed on the bar above, back and forth across the yard together.

At 11, it was David’s job. But his arms weren’t long enough to pull the starter cord.

“Tina,” he’d yell for his sister, “go start the lawn mower for me.”

In seventh grade, David was flunking in typing class because he couldn’t hit the keys fast enough to keep up.

That winter break, his mother bought a typewriter and David practiced every day.

“We make adjustments,” his mom said. “We don’t need the world to adjust to us.”

David went back to school typing 75 words a minute. The teacher subtracted off points because he didn’t put the correct fingers on the correct keys.

“He can type, that’s all that matters,” Julia said.

Breakthroughs: 'Do it, David'

In December 1989, the family moved to Phoenix, to a neighborhood near 61st Avenue and Thomas Road.

David was 12 and halfway through eighth grade. He didn’t know anyone.

David Solano (right) works with Ismael Viera Fonseca on a math problem in their classroom at Palm Lane School in Phoenix.(Photo: Mark Henle/The Republic)

His dad suggested he play soccer. For that, he wouldn’t even need arms. But David wanted to try basketball.

“Do it, David,” his mom said. His dad bought him a basketball.

Every day, when his homework was finished, David practiced at a nearby court. He figured out how to catch the ball by cupping it between his forearms. He dribbled with the sides of his hands instead of his fingertips.

David made his first friend, Andy Moreno, on the court. His dad would watch David play pick-up games, making baskets from three-point range.

David never tried out for school teams. He played a season with Special Olympics, scoring as many as 50 points a game and at Trevor G. Browne High School, he played in an intramural league. His team won.

One day, his mom pulled him aside. “Your brain is going to have to take you wherever you want to go,” she said.

He shows them how he rubs against the door jamb, up and down, like a bear on a tree in the woods. They laugh again.

David Solano sips water while working with students in his classroom at Palm Lane School in Phoenix.(Photo: Mark Henle/The Republic)

Can you drive?

Can you play video games?

Mr. Solano can do everything anyone else can do — except tie his own shoes.

He can move his thumb and pointer finger on his right hand; the other three fingers only move together. On his left hand, only his thumb moves independently, the other four fingers move as one.

So he wears slip-ons or asks someone to tie his shoes for him.

If you could have normal hands, would you want normal hands?

Mr. Solano thought about it. “I’ve never crossed that path in my brain,” he said.

No, he told the kids. “I’m happy the way I am.”

Once his students ask all their questions, they don’t talk about it again.

Sometimes younger students stare and point at him. Mr. Solano sees his students bristle.

“It’s OK,” he tells them. “You can’t get mad.”

And he tells them what his mother used to tell him, again and again.

“People are going to look at you because your hands are different. You can either be the show or put on a show.”

Mr. Solano puts on a show.

Momentum: 'It's just getting great'

Mr. Solano sits on a chair in the corner of his classroom, No. 10. The bulletin board behind him is trimmed with a Denver Broncos border. David and his dad have never missed watching a game together, either in person or on TV.

He opens a paperback copy of R.L. Stine’s “How to Kill a Monster.” His students sit at his feet, on the floor, as he begins to read aloud.

David Solano reads R.L. Stine’s “How to Kill a Monster” to his fourth-grade students at Palm Lane School in Phoenix.(Photo: Mark Henle/The Republic)

He reads like he’s an actor in a play, with different voices and sound effects. The kids lean in close when he whispers and jump back when he hollers, “There’s the monster!”

He looks around, pretending to check in case his wife might have heard him.

“Don’t tell her I said that or I won’t get dinner for a week!” Mr. Solano says. “I’ll have to come to your house for chimichangas!”

He closes the book. “That’s the end of the chapter!” he says. But the kids beg: “One more! One more!”

OK, he says, only because it’s a short chapter. He holds the book in one hand, supported by his other forearm.

When the monster howls, Mr. Solano howls. When the floorboards creak, he makes an eeeeeeek sound.

“We killed the swamp monster!” he chants like a child. The students laugh.

Mr. Solano asks about what happened and what they think will happen next. He will save the last chapter for tomorrow.

“Oh, no, it’s just getting good,” Jovani Martinez says.

Mr. Solano doubles down. “It’s just getting great!”

He pushes up out of his chair with the help of a walking stick. He can stand and walk, though not for long stretches at a time.

Mr. Solano sips from his water bottle, holding it in one hand and using his other arm to tip up his elbow.

Guillermo Guerreroasks for his math score, so Mr. Solano signs onto his computer.

“We’re going to work. We’re going to work hard. Because that’s what it takes.”

David Solano, to the basketball team he coaches at Raul H. Castro Middle School

“Your mom is going to love this,” he says, showing Guillermo his grade. “She’s going to give you a chimichanga tonight.”

They bump knuckles.

It is time for art. Mr. Solano eases himself into his wheelchair.

“Who’s my pusher?” he asks. In his class, one of the jobs is wheelchair pusher. Today it is Yaritza Rabago. “It’s fun,” she says.

Mr. Solano hurt his knee three years ago at a concert when his foot got caught under his chair. It’s still not any better. “It’s like it went dead on me,” he said.

The doctor doesn’t think it is related to his condition, though maybe he overcompensated for his arms with his legs. Mr. Solano goes to physical therapy and works out.

He hasn’t missed a day of school or practice because of it.

But he admits, “It’s been a battle.” There are some days when it is hard to even get up.

But then he hears his mom, “Do it, David.”

And he does it.

Passions: 'If you build kids, you win'

David’s mother died in 2005 from complications of diabetes. Julia Margarita Solano was 55.

When his mother was sick, in the hospital, he thanked her for standing up for him whenever he was mistreated or wronged. For always being there.

She was so strong, always. He never once saw her cry.

A month later, David enrolled at the University of Phoenix to work on his master’s degree.

David Solano and his daughter A.J. Solano, 3, look on while David’s wife, Angel Solano, talks with their daughter Julia Solano,11, before the start of basketball practice.(Photo: Mark Henle/The Republic)

When he graduated in 2006, he didn’t walk at commencement. Instead he sat with his diploma for a few hours at Holy Cross Cemetery, where his mom is buried.

“We did it,” David told her. He gave the diploma to his dad.

And then he decided to get back into basketball.

He interviewed for a dozen coaching jobs, but no one would hire him. His wife, Angel, pregnant with their first child, encouraged him to keep trying.

He went to Desert Sands Middle School, where he had attended eighth grade when he first moved to Phoenix, and asked if he could coach there.

The school had the worst team in the area, going 3-7 the previous season.

“If you guys hire me,” David boldly told the athletic director, “I’m going to win you a state championship.”

He laughs now. “I just wanted a job. I had no idea if I could do it.”

He did. That first year, the team won the Valley Junior High 5A Conference.

In the four years David coached there, his team won 38 games and lost two.

He moved to Castro, where the Cougars had gone 0-10 the previous season, in 2011.

At the first game, the opposing team’s coach set the stage: “We always like coming here because we get an easy victory.”

The Cougars lost that game, but by only eight points.

The team went 2-8 that first year, but the next year, they were 7-3 and made it to the conference playoffs.

The Cougars have made it to the playoffs every year since but they haven’t won the title.

They haven't won it yet.

Motivations: 'You've got some game'

It is day two of tryouts in the gym at Castro. The boys are out of breath from a running drill.

“Nice! Nice!” Coach yells.

Castro’s athletic director, Andrew Cooke, watches from the sideline. He’s known Coach for six years.

“He really instills a passion for education,” he said. “He treats everyone like they belong. He builds a family with his team, and the kids don’t want to let down their family.”

Coach looks beyond the tallest kids.

“He really instills a passion for education. He treats everyone like they belong. He builds a family with his team, and the kids don’t want to let down their family.”

Andrew Browne, David Solano's athletic director

“I don’t care how small you are, you’ve got some game,” he tells Devaroun Watson, the sixth-grader he’s nicknamed Baby Watson. Big Watson is his brother, Denillean, a seventh-grader.

Budget cuts mean Coach has just one team, not separate ones for each grade like some other schools in their conference. However he configures his team, his boys will go up against teams of all eighth-graders.

Coach splits the boys into squads to play quick games; the first to score five points wins. He’s watching to see how they react to losing.

“Their demeanor should be the same, win or lose,” Coach says.

He tells the boys, “If you lose, you can be disappointed or mad, stomp your feet, in private, but not in public. You need to keep your head up.”

“OK, get some water! Get some water!” Coach yells.

His wife, Angel, hands him a water bottle. She comes to most practices and all of the games, bringing their 3-year-old, Amelia Jade, who goes by A.J. Their 11-year-old, Julia, named after David’s mother, goes to school where her dad teaches and rides over with him.

David Solano watches his team run a drill during basketball practice at Raul H. Castro Middle School in Phoenix.(Photo: Mark Henle/The Republic)

David and Angel connected in a chat room online in 2001.

They had a lot in common. He was a teacher. She ran a before- and after-school program.

The first time they met in person, David brought her a single red rose.

Angel hadn’t known about his condition and didn’t bring it up.

They dated for months, going to dinner and the movies. They cooked together. She watched David play basketball at the park.

Finally, he said, “Why haven’t you ever asked me about it?”

“It didn’t matter. We had already clicked,” she says.

Now Angel is the keeper of water bottles and cellphones next to her on the bleachers. She’s known most of the young men on the court, helping run drills, since they were in middle school.

Purpose: If it hadn't been for Coach

Tahji Williams is 19, at ASU now studying dentistry. He revels in David's passion for the game. “He just made you put in effort. He was like, ‘Go hard! Go hard!’ and you would want to go hard.”

Out on the court, Coach yells, “Go hard! Go hard!” Tahji grins and takes a ball from Malik Wallace.

Malik is 17, a senior at Sierra Linda High School and captain of his varsity team. He’s had two college scholarship offers so far.

He was angry when he moved to Phoenix from Detroit in seventh grade. He talked back to teachers. He didn’t do his homework.

David Solano (center) talks with Brandon July at Raul H. Castro Middle School in Phoenix.(Photo: Mark Henle/The Republic)

“Man, I was bad. I was bad,” he says. But he played basketball on the playground, and he was good. The other boys told Coach about him, and he took a look.

“Get in here and play for me,” Coach told him.

“I had no choice,” Malik says, laughing. When Malik goofed off in practice, Coach threw passes that hit him in the chest, hard.

“Pay attention,” Coach yelled.

Coach made shots Malik couldn’t, so Malik practiced until he could.

His mom didn’t have a car, so Coach drove him home. He helped Malik get tutoring.

And he told him, “I’ve never seen talent like you, and I love you like a son,” but if he didn’t keep his grades up, or he acted up, he’d sit on the bench.